He suddenly just fell into the ground…

Everything was out of place this morning as I prepared for work. I have myself to blame because last night when I got home I was too tired to be tidy. All I wanted to do was eat, pray, read the bible and sleep, so everything that I’m usually supposed to have on me was not on me. I kept having to go back into the flat to get things and this meant I was now more late than ever. I walked at a hurried pace, constantly checking my surroundings cause it’s a busy area. I’m looking directly ahead of me and a man suddenly just fell into the ground. It’s always so strange when you see an anomaly happen in real life. I was completely shocked and thrown off because like everyone around me, I was wondering what just happened because he suddenly just fell into the ground.

What do you even do in such a situation? I stopped because I wasn’t that far behind him and I didn’t know if the ground would collapse beneath me too. Who do you even call? The police? Firefighters? Maybe because they have rope and are more resourceful? Who would respond to this? A few people are standing around the hole looking in and shouting hoping to hear a response from the guy. They couldn’t even see how deep it went and sadly there wasn’t any response. I’m already late to work and me staying would not really be of any help from my understanding of the situation. So I walk a little distance away from the hole for even though I have incessant suicidal ideation I am cautious about how I go about life. Maybe it’s because I would like a peaceful death, one lacking pain or suffering, I think I’d like to die in my sleep you know. Also, in as much as I do not fear death I do understand that if heaven and hell exist I would like to go to the former even though I know I deserve the latter. So knowing how my current state of affairs are I’ll keep my distance.

As I walked to the bus station I was distracted and my mind was going on and on about what happened, I remembered how a few months back I had witnessed an accident when I was on a bus on my way home. I watched the bus ahead of the one I was on turn too early aiming for the bus layby but it ended up gliding smoothly into the drainage just before. It’s surreal because it is unexpected and you watch it happen live, in real time and you almost can’t believe it. I still remember the song that was playing at that exact moment “Masego’s Interlude” by Sango & Masego, the song is now forever a memory cue. And like that moment I couldn’t help but think the same of this one, how it could have been me in that situation. If things were tidy I’d have been ahead of him and I would have been the one who fell through. I wondered if it was a matter of timing or destiny but it almost feels unfair on his part that it was him. Did he do something wrong? Or rush? Or it’s just the happenings of life and this was just another unfortunate event?

My mind went on on how we trust creation and created things, there’s usually never a moment when we step on the ground with the fear that it will collapse underneath our feet. We seem to have a trust in it because it has always been firm and sturdy unless otherwise, say in areas with landmines or others with shifting tectonic plates on the regular. We never think we’re too heavy for the earth but it’s not even about that, it was a random sink hole. Maybe weight did matter and it needed the right heaviness to finally shake the soil that held right above the surface of that would be hole and if it were me I’d have fallen through faster. Should I think about each step I take? Should I walk lightly? I’m overthinking this and I should stop it is probably just something that happened and wouldn’t happen again. I wonder if it will be covered in the news or if people will be warned? I doubt it honestly, in our area of the world would tests even be run on the earth to see if there’s a bigger issue or if it really was random? Anyway let me get to work.

I told my colleagues about it and they agreed that it was a crazy happening, one of those things you can’t really be prepared for and after that the day went on as per usual. I’m not really into news, current affairs and just information on what’s happening in the world. It can be depressing and so I avoid it and kind of just move on a ‘the less I know the better’ basis and whatever information is really important will in some way find a way of reaching me. The day went on as always and I heard nothing of what had happened in the morning at least not until I got home. My sister spoke about there being some media people tapping and asking around if anyone witnessed what had happened or noticed anything strange around the time of the happening. I thought to myself about how oblivious we or I can be about my surroundings, all I was thinking is I’m late and I needed to have left 10 minutes ago.

I then proceeded to tell her that I did witness what had happened and it happened really fast and also my thoughts on everything. She said it would have been good if I were there earlier to give my account because I seemed to have seen everything that had happened and it would be a good report. I said oh well, I’m sure they have enough eye witness reports on the same and how I just hope we get to hear if they’ll be any further investigations on the land and if this was random or something we should be concerned about.

Weeks went by and nothing was said on the sink hole and we carried on and we were no longer paranoid. Months went by and life was as it once was and the incident became one of those things that happened. I’ve always liked movies about earth quakes and how they start and the real fear of what one might do if a drastic event like that took place. Is it better if you’re in a building or just on the ground? And it was always funny to me when I’d picture my country in such a situation because we barely fix road damages in time but in the case of the aftermath of an earthquake what would they do? How long would it take for us to recover and rebuild?

If you’re like me then you most likely get preoccupied with life and get engulfed in your little world and all its intricacies while the world around you buzzes with its own. Once in a while you think of yourself as part of everything going on around you and how you are connected to others in different ways. But how whether you think about it or acknowledge it or not, you are affected by things and people around you but you carry on. Until well, you are forced to be part of it all.

One morning I headed into town to do some grocery shopping. I usually go to Soweto market to get my spices and it is pretty crowded there. I was focused on making my way through the crowd and the paths full of marketeers and some vehicles. It happened so suddenly, you know that feeling when you’re in an elevator and you’re going down, that weird feeling you get in your gut? That, but more chaotic, the ground giving way beneath my feet. It was heavy and painful, dark and dusty, I was in and out and there was lots of chaos. We shouldn’t have trusted the ground, we shouldn’t have been so sure, we should have been thorough. There’s nothing I could have done to change things, all I could do was fight for me now. There was wailing and screams, people grabbing and trying to climb one another to get to the top and it was a terrible sight. They should have taken that sink hole more seriously, it was the warning we needed but no one did what they needed to. Maybe I should have given my witness report, maybe things would be different but really how would things be different? When even I barely noticed what was going on before the man plummeted. The scale of this sink hole was nothing close to what happened all those months ago. I started to think maybe this is the end, the rapture maybe?

Everything seemed to be in the ground, buildings and humans buried under the earth and on top of each other. There was nothing to hold on to or grab on to and you were lucky to be on the top because those below though alive could do nothing about it. Any movements would just mean more crushing and more pain or even worse the loss of their lives. It’s a catastrophe and what makes things worse is will anything be done about this? Is this just a local event or everyone around the world is going through this? Now I regret never checking the news. The ground is not stable, it looks and seems like the earth wants to and is going to collapse within itself and there is nothing we can actually do about it. What can our equipment really do when it itself needs the ground for support? All we are and all we’ve built is here, on the ground, and right now everyone wants to live through this, so who will help?

All I was doing was reaching for the top, but even then what would I do cause the higher I went the more I could see the hopeless situation we were all in. where were my family and friends? Were they okay? Or were they in a situation like mine? Maybe even worse, they could be dead. I wondered what our leaders and those in authority would do or if maybe they were in the exact same situation we were in. I later began to hear sirens and horns and a voice from a helicopter notifying us that it was just a natural disaster only here in Zambia. All provinces were affected and many lives lost. It is a catastrophic event with unprecedented destruction and it is only going to get worse. There is more movement happening on the ground and in the earth, help will come but it will take some time so we should hold on. It is not the end of the world as we know it but all I could think about is how we should have never trusted the ground.